Trains moving an upstate river of oil

100M gallons shipped weekly in Albany County

By Brian Nearing

Published 9:13 pm, Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Albany

Up to 42 oil trains each week — representing more than 100 million gallons of Bakken crude from North Dakota — are moving through Albany County, according to figures released by the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

Two major rail companies — CSX and Canadian Pacific — provided oil train routing information to the state earlier this month under an emergency federal order intended to help inform local emergency workers of potential risks. Each oil train can carry about 100 tankers filled with crude.

CSX transports oil through 17 counties on a line that runs upstate from Lake Erie and eastward roughly along the state Thruway corridor, while CP runs oil through five counties in the Capital Region and the North Country on the way from Canada, according to the reports.

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Two oil terminal operators in Albany — Global Partners and Buckeye Partners — have state permission to handle up to 2.8 billion gallons of crude a year. In 2013, the two companies moved about 1.6 billion gallons, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

CSX is moving from one to five trains a week through the Port of Albany, but much more oil — up to 30 trains a week — is running on the CSX line along the eastern shore of the Hudson River that runs through Albany, Greene, Ulster, Orange, and Rockland counties. That line connects to gasoline refineries in Philadelphia and the Eastern seaboard.

Some oil arriving at the port is transferred for shipment down the Hudson on tankers or barges.

Canadian Pacific is running an average of seven trains a week into Albany, Schoharie, Saratoga, Essex and Clinton counties. That northern line runs through Washington County as well between Saratoga and Essex counties, but the CP report indicated that Washington County carried no oil trains, which was physically impossible.

Homeland Security spokesman Peter Cutler said the Washington County figure was likely a typographical error, which a CP spokesman confirmed was the case.

Federal officials ordered railroads to turn over local-level details of shipments after a string of fiery accidents involving Bakken crude. Derailments of oil-laden tank cars have caused explosions in North Dakota, Virginia, Alabama, Oklahoma and Quebec, where 47 were killed when a runaway train crashed in Lac-Megantic last July.

"It is no surprise to find out that hundreds of crude oil trains are rumbling through upstate New York every month -— each laden with outdated and flawed DOT-111 model tankers that are prone to rupture and vulnerable to explode," Schumer said. "That is why we need a federal rule ASAP mandating the phase-out and retrofit of these cars.

"I commend the oil companies for announcing their intention to stop using many of these cars within three years," Schumer added, "but we cannot afford to wait and need a federal stick to guarantee these vital safely upgrades."